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Blood of Vol
"''Look not to the skies, nor the depths below, nor even the distant past or future. Seek the divine within, for the blood is the life, and in its call can be heard the promise of eternal life. One has but to listen." '' The Seekers of the Divinity Within The Blood of Vol is the most prominent religion in Questor and especially in Port Verge. Followers of the Blood of Vol call themselves Seekers, shorthand for Seekers of the Divinity Within. Their doctrine is centered on the belief that each of us has the ability to reach immortality. The Blood of Vol does not revere any deity, instead venerating the potential that courses though their own veins. Only by embracing the power flows within themselves can people avoid Dolurrh's gray wasteland. The afterlife of a Seeker is crafted by the individuals own abilities and drives. It is a place eternal suited to who they were in life. Scholars can afterlive in vast libraries. Sailors cross glorious oceans and visit exotic ports. Families can gather again when life has past. Seekers do not venerate Gods. It was these spitefully entities who cursed us with mortality so that we would never be able to unlock our true power and challenge them. We all have the divinity within, but the universe is against us and death is oblivion. All we can do is stand together, look after those we love, and hope that some day we can break the curse of mortality and bring about a new age. Vol was the first Seeker to discover the Divinity Within. Some say she was elf who parentage included the blood of a great dragon. The symbol for the church once included the dragon skull and blood drop imagery but over time that icon had sown unnecessary discord. Port Verge's High Priestess, Vadanthe, crafted a new symbol for the church decades ago. When the elven high priestess died, her successor, the High Priest Rannut, quickly began removing all the winged symbols and returning them to the original skull iconography. Practices “Doing is the best teacher,” say the worshipers of The Blood of Vol. Long-time members take one to a half-dozen or so recruits and helps them see where their potentials lie. Some work together, some journey together, some just talk and visualize together. Each mentor approaches their training their own way. Most members have multiple mentors over the course of their lives. The goal of these sessions is to teach recruits how to build the foundations of their afterlife. There is no one right way to do this but those who have achieved it have taught the living how they did so. The only agreed on way to fail at this effort is to ask when it will be over — the faithful know that growth ends only when the blood stops flowing. Each month in Port Verge, when Aryth, the orange-red moon of Passage is full the Bonehouse holds a ceremony to celebrate worshipers who have enter some new stage in their life: starting a family or business venture, taking on a new career or finishing a master work, and so forth. Additionally, once a week, the church holds a communal meal. Members are expected to help in some manner be it preparation of food, set-up, clean-up, coin for food and drinks, etc. Those that just take and never give will fairly quickly find their plates full of gristle and burnt ends. Undeath The Blood of Vol has an open outlook on undeath. Seekers see undeath as a tool. Undead such as skeletons and zombies are useful and a way to thumb your nose at the universe: You may have killed me, but you’ll have to grind my bones to dust before I stop helping my people. Seekers believe that their souls are destroyed after death and if they have done it right their spirits live on. There is nothing magical about the body; so why not use it in a way that will help those who still live? In addition, throughout history the Blood of Vol has had champions who have become undead so that they can continue to teach or protect the living, or search for ways to break the curse of mortality or fight the Sovereigns themselves; essentially, undead saints. What makes these beings worthy of respect isn’t that they are undead: it’s what they do WITH their undeath. So a Seeker doesn’t inherently see a vampire as worthy of reverence; they understand that many vampires are selfish and only out for themselves. On the other hand, there are those who have become mummies or vampires or liches so that they can champion the faith and assist others in reaching their potential afterlife, and those beings deserve reverence. Granted most Seekers don’t want to become undead. While it’s a way to literally avoid death, it’s accepted that the Divinity Within is tied to your blood and your lifeforce; once you become undead, you lose that spark. The undead champions who seek to aid others are considered to be martyrs because they have given up their own chance at divinity by tying their spirit to dead flesh in order to help the living. It’s a way to avoid death, but it’s a crappy half-life compared to what we could be. The Bonehouse Though the main temple of the Blood of Vol in Port Verge is called the Shrine of Promise, an epithet set with dark garnets above the door, it is known locally as the Bonehouse because of the grim decorations on the building's front wall. Skeletal gargoyles are set in the second-story eaves of the shrine and wrecked metal keels of ships form a sort of palisade between the building itself and the street in front. Among Blood-worshiping sailors, it is customary to place a token of those lost at sea on the front steps of the Bonehouse so the bleak architecture is usually augmented further by a collection of odds and ends lying on the ground as if a host of people had just been swept over the bluffs of the Upper City and into the sea. The keels serve a similar function as captains whose ships prove unsalvageable sometimes give the keels to the shrine in remembrance. Many sailors believe that ships have souls and personalities and Seeker captains can come to see their vessels as extensions of their own selves. Even though metal keels can be sold for a healthy sum, having a part of yourself so near a holy site must certainly help Seeker captains in their quest for personal divinity. High Priest Rannut It is a common misconception across Khorvaire, that the Blood of Vol and the fanatical Order of the Emerald Claw are allied or even one and the same. This is untrue. The Emerald Claw may have Seekers in their ranks but so does any other secular order. Typical Seekers do not condone the terrorist actions of the Emerald Claw and hates the fact that their religion has been tired to these zealots. As of late the connection between the Order and the Seekers in Port verge has grown muddy to many outside the groups. The new High Priest in Port Verge has been speaking out in favor of the Emerald Claw and sheltering them from their excesses. High Priest Rannut is a Karrnathi man with large ego and short temper. His political bluntness has landed him in trouble with Port Verge's complex political scene. When Rannut took the position of High Priest from the last Blood of Vol leader his thirst for power immediately made itself known. Towards the end of Last War, Prince Kolberkon, who was under increasing pressure from the Five Nations, made contract with the Order for law enforcement against his better judgment. The High Priestess Vadanthe helped him keep the Order on a tight leash. Rannut has done just the opposite and the Emerald Claw began overstepping their bounds more frequently. This tension came to a head a month ago when a band of Emerald Claw knights confronted a group of privateers near the arenas. In the ensuing melee, a fire broke out which severely damaged both the Maw and surrounding areas as it spread wildly. The privateers immediately turned to extinguish the flames and help the citizens. The Order used the opportunity to cut down as many of the privateers as they could before fleeing and claiming sanctuary in the Bonehouse. The resulting public outcry was more than enough for the Prince to demand an apology from the Order and Blood of Vol clergy. Rather than try to smooth over the incident, Rannut responded with a sermon condemning temporal powers for interfering with matters of spiritual importance. While the Blood of Vol remains in a position of some authority, its position is precarious and the relationship between the church and the throne is growing more charged with each passing week. A nudge from any of the city's other power groups could cause it to explode.